The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Friday, May 29, 2015

For Israeli military and defense planners, there can be no more
important or urgent expression of synergy than one particularly critical
pair of threats. These are the seemingly discrete, but integrally
linked, hazards of Iranian nuclear weapons and Palestinian statehood.

The following brief essay makes an informed case for a substantially
enhanced Israeli consideration of foreseeable enemy “synergies.” The
concept of synergy signifies that the ordinarily binding axioms of
geometry can sometimes be overridden by certain intersecting phenomena.
Whenever synergy is understood in expressly military or strategic terms,
these complex phenomena may include a variety of converging or
interpenetrating threats. Here, however counterintuitive, the
geo-strategic whole offered by enemy perils could turn out to be greater
than the sum of its adversarial parts.
In essence, it means that when individual perils are examined from
the standpoint of how each one affects another, the cumulative effect
can be worse than would be suggested by a simple addition of increments.
For Israeli military and defense planners, there can be no more
important or urgent expression of synergy than one particularly critical
pair of threats. These are the seemingly discrete, but integrally
linked, hazards of Iranian nuclear weapons and Palestinian statehood.

This unique and widely-unrecognized synergy should now be treated
with an appropriate intellectual regard. Iran and Palestine, as
“negative force multipliers,” do not represent separate or unrelated
hazards to Israel. Instead, they define mutually reinforcing, and
potentially existential perils. Consequently, Jerusalem must do whatever
it can to simultaneously eliminate or reduce the expected harms on both
conjoined fronts.

To be sure, Israel will need to continuously enhance its multilayered
active defenses. As long as incoming rocket aggressions from Gaza, the
West Bank, and Lebanon were to remain conventional, the inevitable
“leakage” could still be considered tolerable. But once these rockets
might be fitted with chemical and/or biological materials, any such
porosity could rapidly prove “unacceptable.”
Facing Iranian nuclear missiles, Israel’s “Arrow” ballistic missile
defense system would reasonably require a fully 100% reliability of
interception. To achieve any such level of reliability, however, would
be impossible. Now, assuming that the prime minister has already
abandoned any residual hopes for a cost-effective eleventh-hour
preemption against pertinent Iranian nuclear assets, which is an
altogether credible assumption at this very late date, Israeli defense
planners must look towards long-term stable deterrence.

Israel’s leaders also will have to accept that certain leaders of its
overlapping enemies might not always satisfy the complex criteria of
rational behavior in world politics. In such improbable but still
conceivable circumstances, assorted Jihadist adversaries in Palestine,
Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, or elsewhere might sometime refuse to back
away from their contemplated aggressions against Israel.
Facing a new and incalculable synergy from Iranian and Palestinian
aggressions, Israel will need to take appropriate steps to assure that
it does not become the object of any non-conventional attacks from these
enemies, and that it can successfully deter all possible forms of
non-conventional conflict. To meet these ambitious goals, Jerusalem must
retain its recognizably far-reaching conventional superiority in
pertinent weapons and capable manpower, including effective tactical
control over the Jordan Valley.

In principle, such retentions could reduce the overall likelihood of
ever actually having to enter into any chemical, biological, or nuclear
exchange with regional adversaries. Correspondingly, Israel
should plan to begin to move incrementally beyond its increasingly
perilous posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” By shifting toward
prudently selective kinds of “nuclear disclosure,” Israel may be able to
better deter its enemies.

Paradoxically, Israeli planners may soon have to acknowledge that the
efficacy and credibility of their country’s nuclear deterrence posture
could sometime vary inversely with enemy perceptions of Israeli nuclear
destructiveness. However ironic or counter-intuitive, enemy views of a
too-large or too-destructive Israeli nuclear deterrent force, or of an
Israeli force that is not sufficiently invulnerable to first-strike
attack, could undermine this deterrence posture.

Also critical is that Israel’s current and prospective adversaries
will see the Jewish state’s nuclear retaliatory forces as “penetration
capable.” This suggests forces that seem assuredly capable of
penetrating any Arab or Iranian aggressor’s active defenses.

The Israeli task may also require more incrementally explicit
disclosures of nuclear targeting doctrine, and accordingly, a steadily
expanding role for cyber-defense and cyber-war. Alas, even before
undertaking such delicately important refinements, Israel will need to
systematically differentiate between adversaries that are rational and
irrational.

Overall, the success of Israel’s national deterrence strategies will
be contingent upon an informed prior awareness of enemy preferences, and
of specific enemy hierarchies of preferences. In this connection,
altogether new and open-minded attention will need to be focused on the
seeming emergence of “Cold War II” between Russia and the United States.
This time around, for example, the relationship between Jerusalem and
Moscow could possibly prove helpful rather than adversarial.
It may even be reasonable to explore whether this once hostile
relationship could turn out to be more strategically gainful for Israel,
than its traditionally historic ties to the United States. At this
starkly transitional moment in geostrategic time, when Washington could
conceivably decide to align itself with Tehran and Damascus against
ISIS, virtually anything is possible.

The creation of a Palestinian state would, by definition, reduce
Israel’s already-residual strategic depth. Israel’s missile bases (that
constitute part of its second-strike capability) would be within easy
reach of missiles from Palestinian-ruled territories. Palestinian
control of the Judean mountain heights also could affect negatively
Israel’s early warning capabilities.

These detrimental realities would be exacerbated by the
nuclearization of Iran. Israel would then have to focus on several
mutually reinforcing strategic dangers at the same time, and would
likely discover that the combined effect could prove overwhelming.

All this is aside from the danger that a Palestinian state could fall
victim to Jihadist insurgencies raging across the region such as ISIS.
Palestine might also end up in the Iranian ideological orbit, in either
case the hazard to Israel would exceed the simple sum of intersecting
threats.

The coming together of threats from Iran and Palestine warrants utterly resolute and rapt attention in Jerusalem.

* Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus
Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue. He is
the author of ten books, and several hundred journal articles. Most
recently, he has published in The Harvard National Security Journal
(Harvard Law School), The International Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence, Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College,
The Brown Journal of World Affairs, and the Israel Journal of Foreign
Affairs.

Dr. Louis René Beres (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus
Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue. He is
the author of ten books, and several hundred journal articles. Most
recently, he has published in The Harvard National Security Journal
(Harvard Law School), The International Journal of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence, Parameters: Journal of the U.S. Army War College,
The Brown Journal of World Affairs, and the Israel Journal of Foreign
Affairs.

The idea that, because Sunni and Shi'ite elements are locked in battle with one another today, they will not pose a threat to international security tomorrow, is little more than wishful thinking.

The increased Iranian-Hezbollah presence needs to be closely watched.

A policy of turning a blind eye to the Iran-led axis, including Syria's Assad regime, appears to be doing more harm than good.

As the regime of Bashar Assad continues steadily to lose ground in Syria; and as Assad's allies, Iran and Hezbollah, deploy in growing numbers to Syrian battlegrounds to try to stop the Assad regime's collapse, the future of this war-torn, chaotic land looks set to be dominated by radical Sunni and Shi'ite forces.

The presence of fundamentalist Shi'ite and Sunni forces fighting a sectarian-religious war to the death is a sign of things to come for the region: when states break down, militant entities enter to seize control. The idea that, because Sunni and Shi'ite elements are locked in battle with one another today, they will not pose a threat to international security tomorrow, is little more than wishful thinking.

The increased presence of the radicals in Syria will have a direct impact on international security, even though the West seems more fixated on looking only at threats posed by the Islamic State (ISIS), and disregards the possibly greater threat posed by the Iranian-led axis. It is Iran that is at the center of the same axis, so prominent in entangling Syria.

The threat from ISIS in Syria and Iraq to the West is obvious: Its successful campaigns and expanding transnational territory is set to become an enormous base of jihadist international terrorist activity, a launching pad for overseas attacks, and the basis for a propaganda recruitment campaign.

It has already become a magnet for European Muslim volunteers. Their return to their homes as battle-hardened jihadists poses a clear danger to those states' national security.

Yet the threat from the Iranian-led axis, highly active in Syria, is more severe. With Iran, a threshold nuclear regional power, as its sponsor, this axis plans to subvert and topple stable Sunni governments in the Middle East and attack Israel. Iran's axis also has its sights set on eventually sabotaging the international order, to promote Iran's "Islamic revolution."

This is the axis upon which the Assad regime has become utterly dependent for its continued survival.

Today, the radical, caliphate-seeking Sunni organization, ISIS, controls half of Syria, while hardline Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah units can be found everywhere in Syria, together with their sponsors, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel, fighting together with the Assad regime's beleaguered and worn-out military forces.

The increased Iranian-Hezbollah presence needs to be closely watched. According to international media reports, an IRGC-Hezbollah convoy in southern Syria, made up of senior operatives involved in the setting up of a base designed to launch attacks on the Golan Heights, was struck and destroyed by Israel earlier this year. The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan too has reason to be concerned.

Syria has become a region into which weapons, some highly advanced, flow in ever greater numbers, allowing Hezbollah to acquire guided missiles, and allowing ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front to add to their growing stockpile of weaponry.

Other rebel organizations, some sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar, are also wielding influence in Syria. These groups represent an effort by Sunni states to exert their own influence there.

Despite all the efforts to support it, the Assad regime suffered another recent setback when ISIS seized the ancient city Palmyra in recent days, making an ISIS advance on Damascus more feasible. To the west, near the Lebanese border, Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, the Al-Nursa Front, also made gains. It threatened to enter Lebanon, prompting Hezbollah to launch a counter-offensive to take back those areas.

These developments provide a blueprint for the future of Syria: A permanently divided territory, where conquests and counter-offensives continue to rage, and the scene of an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, producing waves of millions of refugees that could destabilize Syria's neighbors. Syria is set to remain a land controlled by warring sectarian factions, some of whom plan to spread their destructive influence far beyond Syria.

Events in Syria have shown that the notion that air power can somehow stop ISIS's advance is a fantasy. More importantly, they have also illustrated that Washington's policy of cooperation with Iran in a possible "grand bargain" to stabilize the region, while failing to take a firmer stance against the civilian-slaughtering Assad regime, is equally fruitless.

A policy of turning a blind eye to the Iran-led axis, including Syria's Assad regime, appears to be doing more harm than good.

Syria's situation is bleak, no matter which way the tide of war turns. And it won't stop there.

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky

The situation in Syria is deteriorating. To the east, the city of
Tadmur has fallen into the hands of Islamic State, giving that
organization control over nearly half the country, including the areas
bordering on Iraq and Jordan. Assad's regime has lost the border
crossings to Iraq, while the military airfields in the desert -Tadmur
and T4 - have fallen to ISIS. Hundreds who lived in the city and helped
the regime have been slaughtered by Jihadist knives and their bodies
flung onto the streets. The world is concerned that Tadmur's
antiquities, priceless relics of ancient cultures, will suffer the same
fate at the hands of ISIS as did the ancient artifacts of Iraq.

Currently,
there are several combat zones focused on the western part of the
country, the area where most Syrians live and where most of the
agriculture and industry are located. Battles rage between the regime
and a coalition of rebel forces, most of them Islamists attempting to
overthrow Assad. The main centers are the Qalamoun mountains and the
Idlib region. Fierce fighting is taking place in both areas and over the
past few weeks, the regime and its ally, Hezbollah, have been losing
ground as well as more and more fighters and equipment.

The
deteriorating situation in Syria has forced Hassan Nasrallah, the
Hezbollah leader who led his organization into the Syrian quagmire, to
schedule three appearances in which he found himself facing mounting
criticism from Lebanese Shiites. The large number of Hezbollah
casualties has raised the possibility of a general draft, causing high
school pupils to be kept from school by their Shiite parents for fear of
forced induction into the Hezbollah militia.

The
terrible situation in which the Syrians have found themselves has sown
panic among the Alawites, who know full well that the connection
between their heads and their bodies has a good chance of being severed
if the Jihadists prevail. This, naturally, causes them to look for
someone to blame and their natural choice is Bashar Assad. Many Alawites
accuse Assad of destroying the country and creating the situation in
which they - that is, close to two million people - are now in mortal
danger. They know how the majority of Syrians view them after forty five
years of the Assad family's regime and its extreme cruelty, cruelty
which was especially evident when dealing with Sunni opponents.

The
Alawites are deathly afraid of the day that mass graves of about twenty
thousand people who "disappeared" in Tadmor prison between 1980 and
1981 will be found. Most were peaceful citizens murdered for being
suspected of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood. The regime has never
told their bereaved parents, widows and orphaned children the fate of
their loved ones. The discovery of the graves and the sight of the many
skulls they contain will serve to exponentially increase Sunni hatred
and thirst for revenge against the Alawites.

Alawites
are fleeing enclaves and neighborhoods located in Shiite cities -
Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama - for the regions they came from in
northwest Syria, but the rebels are getting closer and threatening to
annihilate them. Suspicions run rife, with Alawites accusing one another
of collaborating with the enemy, or attempting to flee the country in
order to save themselves. In the city of Qardaha, the Assad family's home town, a fight broke out several days ago, in which two of the ruler's cousins were killed.

Even
the Druze, who are traditionally loyal allies of the Alawites, have
begun washing their hands of any connection to them and their regime.
Sheikh Sheikh Hamoud Al Hinawi, one of the Druze spiritual leaders,
said,this week,that "recent events have shown that reliance on what was
once called 'the Syrian Army' is of no value." The Sheikh despaired of
the ability of Assad's forces to protect Druze enclaves in southern
Syria, especially after the transfer of significant forces that had been
keeping the Sunni rebels at bay to other fronts - the Qalamoun mountain
range and the Idlib region. The sheikh called on the regime to return
to the Druze the heavy and medium strength weaponry that was moved from
the area so as to enable them to defend themselves.

The
deterioration of the Syrian army is causing it to lose all restraint
and it is beginning to act as if there are no rules of warfare. There
have been an increasing number of incidents in which civilians were
blown up by explosives including chlorine gas and where scud missiles
were launched at towns taken over by the rebels without taking into
account the possibility of innocent civilian casualties.

All
this is happening at the time when several rebel groups are uniting
under one umbrella, hoping to take advantage of the resulting momentum
to topple the Assad regime once and for all.

Bashar
Assad has lost faith in his Alawite security forces and the only guards
who surround him day and night are Iranians of the Quds force, an
elite unit of the Revolutionary Guards sent by Iran in order to aid the
weakened ruler.

The entire region is experiencing
upheaval as a result of the developments in Syria, chief among them the
efforts expended by the Saudis and Turks to overthrow Assad. The
significance of this joint effort is that the Saudis will fund purchases
of weapons, armaments, communications equipment and other tools of
warfare which will reach the rebel forces via Turkey. In addition,
Turkey will make it easier for foreign volunteers to enter Syria, join
the rebels and enhance their ability to operate.

During
the last few weeks, there have been reports citing the possible places
where Assad can seek refuge - Russia, Iran and Switzerland have been
named. Russia and Iran are listed due to their being friends, while
Switzerland, it is surmised, is listed due to the Assad family's secret
bank accounts in that country. The billions stolen by the ruling family
from the Syrian people over decades will be enough to ensure a life of
opulence and maximum security for centuries.

It is,
however, quite clear that even if Assad leaves the stage, Syria's
problems will be far from over and that the country will soon be in the
throes of violent power struggles between warring organizations, tribes
and factions. Rivers of blood will continue to flow as they do today
until the country is divided into homogeneous regions, each under
independent rule: the Kurds in the northeast, Alawites in the northwest,
Druze in the south, Bedouin in the east, plus Damascus and Haleb. It is
realistic to assume that Hezbollah will take over the area along the
Lebanese border in order to provide the Shiites with a security zone.
The breakup of Syria will strengthen Islamic state, which may then go on
to threaten Jordan and its regime.

Assad has been
reiterating that if his regime falls, those who will suffer most from
the aftershocks are the countries that helped to topple him - Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, Israel, America and NATO - who will not be able to
escape the black scourge of rising Jihadist and extremist Islamism as,
encouraged by Assad's fall, it continues to butcher and destroy.
Thousands of volunteers will stream into Syria from all over the world
to take part in the looting, pillaging and expansion of Islamic State
that will move on to take over Turkey, Iraq and all the other countries
created by colonialist European powers.

The war in
Syria will continue, exactly as the war in Libya is still going on four
years after Qaddafi's fall. Bashar Assad is only part of the problem.
His legacy will be a lethal mix of organizations and groups that will
continue to squabble and battle over the dead corpse of the Syrian
state. It must be kept in mind that among these groups there are Iranian
forces, who, it can safely be assumed, will remain there to see to the
Ayatollahs' interests. It is entirely possible that Iranian forces will
take over Damascus to protect Shiite holy sites located in the city and
its environs.

There remains the possibility that Russia
will take control of Latakia and its surrounding area - "temporarily,"
of course - to permit its naval craft to dock in the last port Russia
has on the Mediterranean. If this scenario becomes a reality, it may
spread to other ports, namely Baniyas and Tartus.

Assad's
regime is fast becoming a thing of the past. Jihadist, destructive
anarchy that can easily turn into another Afghanistan, will take the
place of the state of Syria, spawning organizations bent on
International Jihad whose extremist Islamist message will
spread throughout Europe, America and the rest of the world.

The
world will yet mourn for Assad, as Libya longs for Qaddafi, and Iraq
for Saddam Hussein to rise from the grave and return to power. The new
order in the Middle East may return it not only to the days of the
ancient Muslim Empire but to the period of endless tribal warfare that
preceded it - the trivial difference being, of course, that in those
days they waged war with daggers, swords and camels whereas today's
tools of war are rockets, tanks and bombs, all fruits of modern
industry.

All that's missing is a nuclear powered
Iran to complete the utter chaos that will be the new Middle East.
Oddly, there are those who think that the world can live with these
developments and are willing to reach an agreement with Iran that allows
it to achieve that nuclear power.

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated from the Hebrew by Rochel SylvetskyDr. Mordechai KedarSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/16989#.VWcjFUazd-8 Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

France warned on Wednesday it
was ready to block a final deal between Iran and the six major powers on
Iran's nuclear program unless Tehran provided inspectors access to all
installations, including military sites.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
last week ruled out international inspection of Iran's military sites or
access to nuclear scientists under any agreement. Iran's military
leaders echoed his remarks.

Credit: Reuters

"France will not accept
[a deal] if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian
installations, including military sites," French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius told lawmakers in Paris.

As talks resumed in Vienna on Wednesday to
bridge gaps in negotiating positions before a June 30 deadline, the
United States said it was not considering an extension, despite comments
from France and Iran indicating wiggle room.

"We're not contemplating any extension beyond
June 30," State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters in
Washington, saying the United States believed it was possible to meet
the self-imposed deadline.

To that end, U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry will meet his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Geneva
on May 30. Lead U.S. negotiator Wendy Sherman flew to Vienna on
Wednesday for nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers and will
join Kerry in Geneva before resuming talks in the Austrian capital.

Iran's state TV quoted senior nuclear
negotiator Abbas Araqchi as saying the deadline could be extended,
echoing comments by France's ambassador to the United States. Gérard
Araud said on Tuesday that a deal was not likely by June 30 because
technical details would still need to be resolved.

"The deadline might be extended and the talks
might continue after the June 30 [deadline]," Araqchi said. "We are not
bound to a specific time. We want a good deal that covers our demands."

France is considered to be demanding more
stringent restrictions on the Iranians under any deal than the other
Western delegations, officials said, although U.S. officials have
cautioned that France's position privately is not as tough as it is
publicly.

Pace Slows

A tentative agreement was reached between
Iran, the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China on
April 2, but several issues remain unresolved.

Among them are the pace of easing Western
sanctions imposed over the Iranian program and the monitoring and
verification measures to ensure Iran could not pursue a clandestine
nuclear weapons program.

Iran denies any ambition to develop nuclear weapons and says its program is purely peaceful.

"The talks are serious, complicated and
detailed. The pace of talks is slow as we have entered final stages,"
Araqchi said upon his arrival in Vienna, state TV reported.

Speaking a day after meeting the head of the
U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency in Paris, Fabius also appeared
to suggest differences with other members of the P5+1, saying he hoped
all of them would adopt France's position.

"'Yes' to an agreement, but not to an
agreement that will enable Iran to have the atomic bomb. That is the
position of France, which is independent and peaceful," he said.

Meanwhile, amid the new round of Iran nuclear
talks, Iranians have been captivated this week by a leaked video showing
a vehement argument between a hard-line lawmaker and the country's
foreign minister.

Differing statements from Iranian officials
over what's acceptable for Tehran at the talks with six world powers
have accompanied the negotiations since the start of international
attempts nearly a decade ago to reach a diplomatic solution over Iran's
contested nuclear program. Hard-liners fear that negotiators are
betraying Iran's interests by being too conciliatory, while moderates
chastise their opponents for jeopardizing the talks with unrealistic
demands.

But Iranians usually are not privy to the kind
of bitter recriminations that a video posted on social media Monday has
revealed. It shows Zarif and hard-line lawmaker Mahdi Kouchakzadeh in a
heated exchange, apparently at the end of a closed session of
parliament.

Khamenei "calls you a traitor," Kouchakzadeh says. "I say this from his tongue."

But Zarif, his face red with anger, berates the lawmaker for daring to speak for Khamenei.

"You are damned dead wrong," he declares.\

The footage appears to have been filmed with a
mobile phone and leaked by a lawmaker. Several legislators are
demanding that the incident be investigated and the leaker be
prosecuted.

The video was posted with the talks moved closer to the
June 30 deadline. As they resumed Wednesday in Vienna, Khamenei
indirectly backed Zarif, who has been Iran's lead negotiator at previous
sessions and is expected to rejoin the negotiators at a later stage.

UN's Children and Armed Conflict group says IDF should be added to blacklist for deaths of Palestinian children during Protective Edge.

A push is currently being made in the United Nations to have the Israeli Defense Forces added to the blacklist of the council for Children and Armed Conflict.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui of Armenia, has recommended the IDF be included because of the 500 Palestinian children killed and 3,300 wounded during last summer's Operation Protective Edge.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon seems likely to resist the call, Yediot Ahronot reported, particularly in light of heavy opposition from Israel, and threats such a move could fully terminate relations between Israel and the UN.

However, Palestinian pressure abounds not only from the Palestinian Authority, but also its supporters and human rights groups. According to Yediot, UN Secretariat officials also back the Palestinians and have urged Ban not to give in to Israel's threats.

One ally Israel likely can count on is the United States. Discussing the issue with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night, US Senator Lindsey Graham warned that continued mistreatment of Israel would result in a "violent pushback" against the UN.

Graham threatened to cut all American funding to the United Nations, should it continue to function in a manner that "marginalizes" Israel.

"Israel's enemies threaten and frighten the UN and no one complains. This is an outrage. How many children were killed in the Saudi-led bombings in Yemen? I want to see the Algerian Special Representative dare to put Saudi Arabia on that blacklist."

China’s
State Council, the Communist giant’s version of our cabinet, has issued
a policy paper declaring that Beijing is facing “a grave and complex
array of security threats” that forces it to switch its strategy from
defense to offense and that as a result China will increase its “open seas protection”.

The
power vacuum created by the Obama administration’s withdrawal from
world leadership and resistance to tyranny is not only being filled by
the Islamic State and its terrorist affiliates like Boko Haram and state
sponsors of terror like soon-to-be nuclear Iran but also by an
increasingly belligerent and resurgent China.

China’s
State Council, the Communist giant’s version of our cabinet, has issued
a policy paper declaring that Beijing is facing “a grave and complex
array of security threats” that forces it to switch its strategy from
defense to offense and that as a result China will increase its “open seas protection”.

This
means that China is not about to give up its territorial claim in the
South and East China Seas, which include the Spratley, Paracel, and
Shenkaku Island chains but will protect them with aggressive force if
necessary. China will also continue its building of artificial islands
as bases from which to strike. This is a clear response to President
Obama’s “Pacific pivot” and an indication of how little Beijing is impressed.

An editorial in the Global Times,
a newspaper seen as a mouthpiece for hard-line nationalists in Beijing,
warns of the consequences of resistance warns, “If the United States’
bottom line is that China has to halt these activities, then a U.S.
China war is inevitable in the South China Sea.”

Beijing
has long declared the South China Sea to be its territorial waters and
has laid claim to two disputed chains: the Paracel Islands, about 200
miles from the coast of Vietnam, and the Spratly Islands in the
southeastern part of the South China Sea. China's territorial ambitions
include the Senkakus in the East China Sea, part of what Chinese
military doctrine refers to as the "first island chain" that surrounds
China.

In the South China Sea, as of February, according to Reuters,
China had finished construction on no less than six different island
reefs from which to project its power in the South China Sea. Included
in its military effort is the construction of a 3,000 meters (9,842
feet) long runway on the artificially expanded Fiery Cross Reef as a
base for Chinese fighter aircraft.

China's
creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea is happening so
fast that Beijing will be able to extend the range of its navy, air
force, coastguard and fishing fleets before long, much to the alarm of
rival claimants to the contested waters.Reclamation
work is well advanced on six reefs in the Spratly archipelago,
according to recently published satellite photographs and Philippine
officials. In addition, Manila said this month that Chinese dredgers had
started reclaiming a seventh.

China
also is laying claim to the Senkaku Islands in the East China which are
under Japanese administration and which Tokyo claims as Japanese territory.
This has caused Japan to inch farther away from its post-World War II
neutrality and with three consecutive increases to its military budget
to, for it, a whopping $42 billion.

Beijing has established what it calls Air Defense Identification Zones in
the East China Sea, one of which overlaps the Senkaku Islands. Beijing
insists that aircraft flying through these zones file their flight plans
in advance for the approval of Chinese authorities as part of its
long-term plans to dominate the region. The Zones met only token
resistance from the Obama administration:

China
obviously has not been deterred by the Obama administration's response
to the imposition of the East China Sea ADIZ. After China declared that
ADIZ encompassing the Senkakus, two U.S. B-52s flew through the claimed
air space without informing Beijing. But the Obama administration then
instructed U.S. carriers to accede to China's demands for prior
notification.China's
establishment of the ADIZs is carefully timed and part of a strategy to
project power beyond its coastal waters. Its goal is to secure the
waters from Japan's home islands through Taiwan and to the Strait of
Malacca, encompassing the East and South China seas.

China’s
military has grown apace with its territorial ambitions and has come a
long way since the incident on April 1, 2001, when a Chinese J-8 fighter
collided with
an American EP-3 surveillance aircraft, forcing it to land on China’s
Hainan Island. Hainan also happens to be home to a Chinese submarine
base for its ballistic missile and attack submarines.As Bill Gertz noted in the Washington Free Beacon recently, a report b y the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission noted the threat posed in the region by China’s growing military prowess:

China’s
rapid military modernization is altering the military balance of power
in the Asia Pacific in ways that could engender destabilizing security
competition between other major nearby countries, such as Japan and
India, and exacerbate regional hotspots such as Taiwan, the Korean
Peninsula, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea,” the report
concludes in a section on military developments.

This power shift in Asia caused Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III to testify before, chief of U.S. Pacific Command, to warn at
the annual Surface Navy Conference in Virginia: “Our historic dominance
that most of us in this room have enjoyed is diminishing, no question.”

China
is on the rise and on the march and is preparing to call our “Pacific
pivot” bluff. We need to hear the warnings of China’s ambitions versus
our diminished ability to challenge them.

Daniel John Sobieski
is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business
Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among
other publications.

Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel: "We're at
peace with Egypt," says system a much bigger problem in the hands of
Iran • President Reuven Rivlin makes military tour of northern border,
says IDF is ready for anything.

Senior IDF officials brief
President Reuven Rivlin during a military tour of the northern border,
Wednesday

|

Photo credit: Mark Nyman / GPO

Israeli Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Amir
Eshel on Wednesday played down worries voiced by some fellow officials
about the possibility of Egypt acquiring advanced Russian-made air
defenses.

The Russian news agency TASS said in March
Egypt would receive the Antey-2500 missile system, an S-300 variant, and
put the value of the contract at more than a billion dollars. Neither
Egypt nor Russia has formally confirmed it.

The S-300 would pose a challenge to Israel's air force.

Russia is also in talks to sell the system to
Iran, to the open consternation of Israel, which has long threatened to
attack its archfoe's nuclear facilities if it deems diplomatic efforts
to deny Tehran the bomb to have failed.

"It [an Iranian S-300] is a very big
challenge. It is a strategic problem long before it is an operational
problem," Eshel told reporters on the sidelines of a conference on
Wednesday.

"Someone who has an S-300 feels protected and can do more aggressive things because he feels protected," he said.

But Eshel brushed off any suggestions Israel
would be concerned about an Egyptian S-300, telling reporters: "Are you
kidding me? We're at peace with them."

In a state of stable albeit cold peace since
1979, Israel and Egypt have in recent years stepped up security
coordination against Islamist militants.

"We're all for Egypt getting anything it needs
from the United States for counterterrorism," a senior Israeli military
officer said on condition of anonymity this month.

"The problem is that the S-300 has nothing to do with counterterrorism."

A U.S. official said he had heard "muted" misgivings over the S-300 deal, but that the Israelis seemed resigned to it.

"They have a problem because here they are
telling us we should give [Egypt] all this kit for Sinai, and yet they
have problems with certain other weapons systems. They're aware that
it's a mixed message, and they don't want to risk that," the official
told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Egypt depends on extensive U.S. military aid, which can potentially be influenced by Israel's own lobbying in Washington.

Meanwhile, President Reuven Rivlin toured Israel's northern border with top army officials on Wednesday.

Rivlin started his visit at the Gibor camp
near Kiryat Shmona, where Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Golan,
Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi and 91st Division
commander Brig. Gen. Moni Katz presented the current challenges posed by
the Hezbollah presence on the Lebanese border and various perspectives
on events in Syria.

From the Gibor camp, the president continued
to a military observation post at Kibbutz Misgav Am, and from there went
to the Lilach outpost, where he met with soldiers serving in the
Armored Corps and the Golani Brigade.

"The pastoral view before my eyes doesn't fool
the citizens of Israel and it doesn't trick the IDF, which is standing
ready and willing," Rivlin told the troops.

"I came to thank you for your impressive work, which makes [us all] proud," the president said.

By extending its
control to puddles and even totally dry areas where water once flowed
years ago, the EPA can prevent development and further its global
warming ideology.

The EPA has promulgated rules to regulate waterways as small as potholes.
The EPA is supposed to have authority over "navigable" waterways, ones
deep enough for a boat to drive on. The theory behind the Clean Water
Act of 1972 was that if a company on private property discharged
pollution into a body of water that touched on other private properties,
that was a harm that was being transmitted to other property owners,
and thus it was justified to regulate what the property owner was
putting into the water. This makes perfect sense, even from the
perspective of private property rights.

The
Obama administration announced new protections Wednesday for thousands
of waterways and wetlands, pushing ahead despite a fierce counterattack
from powerhouse industries like agriculture, oil and home-building — and
their supporters in Congress.On its face, the Waters of the United States rule is
largely a technical document, defining which rivers, streams, lakes and
marshes fall under the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection
Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. But opponents condemn it as a
massive power grab by Washington, saying it will give bureaucrats carte
blanche to swoop in and penalize landowners every time a cow walks
through a ditch.The
rule is meant to make it clearer which waterways EPA and the Corps of
Engineers can oversee under the 43-year-old Clean Water Act, which
covers “navigable waters” such as the Mississippi River and Lake Erie
but is vague on how far upstream protections must go to keep those water
bodies clean.The
final rule ensures protections for tributaries that have physical signs
of flowing water, even if they don’t run all year round, and ditches
that “look and act” like tributaries, said Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant
secretary of the Army for civil works.

So, for example, the government could regulate a dry stream bed, in addition to ditches of water.

What
is really going on? Liberals at the EPA are not totally unlike
doomsday cultists. They believe that the acts of man are slowly
destroying the Earth. The original mission, of protecting other
property owners from proven contaminants, has been left by the wayside
in pursuit of the larger, more theoretical cause of protecting the
Earth.

A
puddle or a ditch filled with water on a property certainly won't harm
anyone outside the property. But the EPA wants to regulate it because
it feels that without guidance, a private property user will do
something with it to harm the Earth. For example, a private property
owner might want to demolish a pothole, or a ditch, to build a
commercial or residential building, one that could use electricity,
increase consumption, and further "global warming." By extending its
control to puddles and even totally dry areas where water once flowed
years ago, the EPA can prevent development and further its global
warming ideology.

That's what it's all about.

Unlike
a situation where the government buys land outright, there will be no
compensation for these restrictions, or "regulatory takings." It's
simply one more restriction on private property rights, and one more
restriction on our individual liberties. But with media propaganda like
the Huffington Post, which had a giant photo accompanying the
article showing a small child drinking from a water fountain, it's
likely that the uneducated masses will only applaud this latest
diminution of their liberties.

Efforts
to fundamentally transform family and marriage have been long at work,
but never (until now) accepted and pushed by the mainstream. In the
past, these efforts were spearheaded by the most dangerous leftists.

As
the Supreme Court considers rendering unto itself the right to redefine
marriage -- that is, to arrogate to itself something heretofore
reserved to the laws of nature and nature’s God -- it’s a good time to
have something that liberals always insist we have: a conversation. And
given liberals’ constant calls for “tolerance” and “diversity,” they
ought to be willing to sit back and join us in a civil, healthy
dialogue.

I
support the natural-traditional-biblical definition of marriage that
has been Western civilization’s standard for multiple millennia. My
position echoes my Roman Catholic faith. Basically, in a nutshell, my
position is Pope Francis’ position (properly understood).
Though Piers Morgan marvels at my position as “extraordinary,” it’s
merely the one held by your grandparents, great grandparents,
great-great grandparents… great-great-great-great-great-great-great
grandparents and the ongoing long line of ancestors who preceded them.
Even the ancient Greeks and Romans, long viewed as the models of
perversity, never broached the unthinkable prospect of same-gender
people marrying. That simply has never been marriage. What millions of
Americans are rushing to do right now is completely unprecedented.

Today’s
leftists should understand that they are the new One Percenters. They
stand against the literal 99%-plus of humans who ever bestrode the
planet, who never conceived of marriage as anything beyond man and
woman.

As
for those who disagree with me, and no longer support marriage as
reserved to one man and one woman – a redefinition which will ultimately
open the door to numerous new configurations -- I’d like to address you
politely with a point I’m sure you haven’t considered. Do I expect to
change your mind or those of Elena Kagan or Ruth Bader Ginsburg or the
wider culture? No, I don’t. America has entered a protracted phase of
post-Judeo-Christian thinking, where individualism and relativism reign
supreme, fostered by a steady stream of incredibly naïve parents who
marched their children in wide-eyed cadence through the educational
system at giant costs both financial and moral. Nothing short of a major
religious revival will save it. This culture and country will redefine
marriage, either this month or in the months and years ahead.

That
said, I would like to inform gay-marriage supporters of something they
haven’t considered. Here it goes, a brief summary of what I detail over a
couple hundred pages in Takedown:

Efforts
to fundamentally transform family and marriage have been long at work,
but never (until now) accepted and pushed by the mainstream. In the
past, these efforts were spearheaded by the most dangerous leftists. For
two centuries, leftist extremists made their arguments, from the 1800s
to the 1960s, beginning with the Communist Manifesto, where
Marx and Engels wrote of the “abolition of the family!” Efforts to
revolutionize family and marriage continued from socialist utopians like
Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and Albert Brisbane, to cultural Marxists
in the Frankfurt School such as Herbert Marcuse and Freudian-Marxist
Wilhelm Reich, to 20th-century leftists and progressives ranging from
the Bolsheviks -- Lenin, Trotsky, Alexandra Kollontai -- to Margaret
Sanger, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, and ‘60s radicals like Bill Ayers,
Bernardine Dohrn, and Mark Rudd. When Tom Hayden and Robert Scheer ran a
“Red Family” colony in near Berkeley in the 1960s, they were merely
following the footsteps of socialist-utopian colonies in the 1800s in
places like Oneida, New York and New Harmony, Indiana.

Were
these “ideological colonists” (to borrow an apt description by Pope
Francis) supporting gay marriage? Of course, not. No group of radicals,
no matter how unhinged, ever contemplated that. The mere fleeting
contemplation, the mere momentary notion, the slightest passing fancy of
a man legally marrying another man in the 1850s or 1950s would have
been scoffed at as incomprehensible. Such proponents would have been
deemed certifiably insane. Public authorities might well have hauled
them away as menaces to society.

These
fundamental transformers did, however, seek to break down
natural-traditional-biblical boundaries for family and marriage. They
sought every means to reshape and redefine. They did so to the point
that now, today, the Communist Party USA, the People’s World, and even Castro’s Cuba,
not to mention leftist groups like the Beyond Marriage campaign, have
picked up their mantle and embraced gay marriage as the vehicle to
achieve what their leftist forbears were unable to achieve.

For
the far left, gay marriage is the Trojan horse to secure the takedown
of marriage it has long wanted, and countless everyday Americans are
oblivious to the older, deeper forces at work. And even more delicious
for the left, gay marriage is serving as a stunningly effective tool in
attacking what the far left has always hated most: religion.

In
a telling moment about a year ago, I received an email from a reader
who once had been part of the “gay left.” He told me that even most gay
people, who are either not political or nowhere near as political as the
extreme left, have no idea how their gay-marriage advocacy fits and
fuels the far left’s anti-family agenda, and specifically its longtime
take-down strategy aimed at the nuclear family. The emailer is exactly
right (and inspired me to begin collecting the material that led to this
book).

Indeed,
most of the gay people I have known are Republicans. Generally, I have
had no problem easily dialoguing with them, though it is getting more
difficult, as liberals have done their usual excellent job convincing an
entire group that I as a conservative hate them. Even when socially
liberal -- and, even then, mainly on matters like gay rights -- the gay
people I’ve met have been economic conservatives, not to mention
pro-life on abortion. But in signing on the dotted line for gay
marriage, they have also, whether they realize it or not, enlisted in
the radical left’s unyielding centuries-old attempt to undermine the
family. The same is true, ironically, for “conservatives” who support
gay marriage, for libertarians who worship a golden calf of “freedom”
that is fully separated from faith, and for the “moderates” swimming (as
they usually do) with the cultural tide.

Unlike
the communists who ripped marriage as “bourgeois claptrap,” as a form
of “slavery” and “vile patriarchy,” as a system of “captive housewives,”
and who forcibly collectivized children into full-time nurseries in
order to deliberately undermine the traditional family, the vast
majority of today’s proponents of same-sex marriage have friendly
motives. Their goal is not to tear down but to “expand” marriage to a
new form of spousal partner. They do this with the intent of providing a
new “freedom” and “right” to a new group of people. I get that.
Unfortunately, there’s so much that they are not getting.

Today’s
advocates of same-sex marriage need to be aware of the quite insidious
deeper historical-ideological forces they are unwittingly serving. Sure,
that knowledge still will likely not change their minds, but it’s
something that a well-informed, thoughtful person should at least be
willing to learn before urging the unprecedented action that our culture
and court may be about to take.

Awad publicly supported
the terrorist group Hamas as far back as 1994 and referred to Hamas as
well as Hezbollah as “liberation movements” in an Arabic interview with Al-Jazeera in 2004. The FBI monitored his emails from 2006 to 2008.Siraj WahhajImam Siraj Wahhaj, whose history of extremist and anti-American incitement
is almost too long to review. For example, in 1992, he said, “If only
Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States
and replace its constitutional government with a Caliphate.
If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir and give
allegiance to him. Take my word, if eight million Muslims unite in
America, the country will come to us.”

His rhetoric became more cautious after the 9/11 attacks. In 2011, he preached, “The trap we fall into is having a premature discussion about Sharia when we are not there yet.” In November, the New York Police Department disclosed frightening information about his mosque’s activity to defend its intelligence-gathering practices.Naeem Baig, President of ICNA. Under his leadership, ICNA has gone to bat for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and pressured
the U.S. government to stop the Bangladeshi government's crackdown on
Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamist parent group of ICNA. It was particularly upset over the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami leader for war crimes.

Baig is a signatory to the anti-ISIS letter that endorses the caliphate, Sharia governance and jihad against Israel and accused oppressors of Muslims. His group published a radical teaching guide for its members in 2009.Sheikh Yusuf Islahi, whose biography
boasts that he's been a member of the Indian branch of Jamaat-e-Islami
since he was 25 years old and is a five-term member of its Central
Advisory Committee. Islahi is the "chief patron" of ICNA's "Why Islam" campaign. He and the Jamaat-e-Islami he helps lead have a history of anti-Americanism and support for violent jihad.Sheikh Mohammad Qatanani, the imam of the
Hamas-linked Islamic Center of Passaic County. He was arrested and
convicted by Israel in 1993 for being a member of Hamas and the
Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood.

The Department of Homeland Security
seeks his deportation because of his terrorist links and decision not to
disclose his conviction on his green card application.

“It is certainly suspicious when a
person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing
services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader,
and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” a
2008 court filing by Homeland Security explains.

In Arabic lectures
between 2007 and 2009, he prayed for the defeat of “occupation and
oppression” in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya, inferring the U.S., Israel
and Russia. He also said it is permissible for Muslims to donate to the
families of suicide bombers and that Muslims should not criticize Yousef
al-Qaradawi, the pro-terrorism spiritual leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood.

Qatanani has also said that the U.S. needs to limit its free speech to stop “hate” speech towards Islam.Jamal Badawi, formerly listed on ISNA’s website as a member of its Board of Directors, is personally listed as an unindicted co-conspirator
in the Holy Land trial and is a founder of the Muslim American Society,
another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. His name is listed as a U.S.
Muslim Brotherhood official in an internal document from 1992.

Badawi’shistory
includes endorsing suicide bombings and “combative jihad” and praising
Hamas as “martyrs.” He is also close to Brotherhood spiritual leader
Yousef al-Qaradawi.Sheikh Abdool Rehman Khan is the chairman of ICNA's Sharia Council and a member of the Fiqh Council of North America, which is dominated by Islamist radicals. He used to be a scholar for the Islamic Foundation but was apparently fired, based on an online petition demanding his reinstatement.Sheikh Omar Suleiman, a member of the ICNA Sharia Council. His bio states that he studied under Sheikh Salah As-Sawy and Dr. Hatem al-Haj. These are two Salafist clerics that lead the very radical Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America. The closest the organization can bring itself to foreswearing violent jihad is to oppose it because “the Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihadat this time [emphasis added].”Imam Suhaib Webb is the former leader of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. Webb says Muslims should refuse to work with the FBI unless the FBI restores its relationship with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity. The FBI severed ties with due to evidence tying it to Hamas.

He
also condemned secularism as a “radical, lunatic ideology…we’re talking
about the loss of holy power in politics. It’s very difficult to find
any place in the world now that is ruled by someone who is ruling by
divine authority.” He said that only the Islam of Prophet Mohammed’s era
is equipped for political rule today.Ryan Mauro is ClarionProject.org’s
national security analyst, a fellow with Clarion Project and an adjunct
professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on
top-tier television and radio. Read more, contact or arrange a speaking engagement.Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/moderate-muslim-org-lines-radicals-conference Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.